GERALD MAHINDA Brandhouse
South
erald Mahinda is a busy man. It comes with the territory when you are charged with managing over a thousand employees at South Africa’s second largest brewer – Brandhouse. I was therefore quite fortunate to secure a twenty minute conversation with him on his way to the Brandhouse sponsored Pitch and Polish Entrepreneurship competition at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg. Briefly tell us about your background leading up to your current position.
Africa
Managing
and Southern Sudan. How did you find the change from being a financial director to managing director? I took a decision early in my career that my accounting studies would only be a stepping stone to specialising in other areas. I believe my strengths now lie in change
Director
over 60% of our employees are under the age of 35 and they are engrossed in new technologies such as social media. I cannot handle them the same way I handle the older executives and we must therefore structure the organisation in a way that accommodates all age groups. Having been an expatriate in many parts of the continent, what is your view of its economic prospects?
“We have invested over 400 million euros in SA which is the ninth largest beer consuming country in the world.”
I completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Nairobi and soon after qualified as a Certified Public Accountant in Kenya. After a few years at a security firm where I worked as a graduate trainee, I joined a multinational insurance company where I was, for six years, working in the department responsible for Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe. I later joined Standard Chartered where I worked as finance director for five years. Prior to moving to South Africa, I was Managing Director (MD) for East Africa Breweries (EABL), a beer company operating in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi
management. The only constant in business is change. When I was at the bank, we went through a significant automation process. During my stint in insurance, we had to amend the way we do things in a bid to become the leading underwriter in our region. At EABL, we transformed the company from a government owned entity with no marketing function to a profitable brand driven business. We moved from having 24 sales representatives to having 160 overnight. I believe that if you are not mindful of change, somebody else will overtake you. At Brandhouse,
I actually do not like the term ‘expatriate’. It has this connotation of a person who doesn’t change; a person who comes from a different country to impose how things are done there in a new environment. When I went to Nigeria for a year, I did not go there just to share the skills I possessed but also to learn. It was a two way process as I widened my knowledge of business in West Africa. 20% of Africa’s population is sitting in Nigeria and it is said that Nigerians are some of the happiest people on earth. The country is also the seventh largest oil producer and as governance improves, wealth is going to filter to all of its people. In East Africa, where I began my career, oil reserves are being
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